Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (144 page)

They were still debating when Churchill took his case to the American people, through their elected representatives. Five hundred days had passed, the veteran orator elegantly reminded a joint session of the Senate and House, since he had last addressed them, with “every day a day in which we have toiled and suffered and dared shoulder to shoulder against the cruel and mighty enemy.” The fact that Congress had invited him back was a “high mark in my life,” Churchill modestly asserted. “It also shows that our partnership has not done so badly.”

The prime minister assured his listeners—who included, as before, a national radio audience—that Britain had as large a stake in defeating Japan as America had. “It may not have escaped your attention that I have brought with me to this country and to this conference Field Marshal Wavell and two other commanders in chief from India. Now, they have not traveled all this way simply to concern themselves about improving the health and happiness of the Mikado of Japan.” Churchill pointed out that Britain was already contributing directly to the destruction of Germany by the bombing raids it conducted in concert with the Americans. “Our air offensive is forcing Germany to withdraw an ever-larger proportion of its war-making capacity from the fighting fronts in order to provide protection against the air attacks.” He recalled the discouragement he had felt, during his last visit to Washington, when he learned of the fall of Tobruk. “That, indeed, was a dark and bitter hour for me.” But the bitterness was eased, almost at once, by gratitude. “I shall never forget the kindness, the delicacy, the true comradeship which our American friends showed me and those with me in such adversity.” The Sherman tanks President Roosevelt dispatched to Egypt had been crucial in the campaign to stem the German advance and ultimately reclaim North Africa.

Churchill didn’t engage the issue of Italy versus France, at least not directly. But his preference for Italy was well known, and in recounting the glorious victories thus far of American and British arms in the Mediterranean, he left little doubt in the minds of his congressional audience or his radio listeners as to where he thought the next blows should fall. “The enemy is still proud and powerful. He is hard to get at. He still possesses enormous armies, vast resources, and invaluable strategic territory. War is full of mysteries and surprises. A false step, a wrong direction of strategic effort, discord or lassitude among the Allies might soon give the common enemy the power to confront us with new and hideous facts.”

R
OOSEVELT HAD ALWAYS
known the end game would be the hardest part; he just didn’t know it would begin so soon. Churchill’s political eloquence proved more than a match for Marshall and Leahy’s military reasoning, and the invasion of Italy went forward. In July 1943 an American army under George Patton and a British army under Bernard Montgomery crossed from North Africa to Sicily. A week of fighting brought Patton to within sight of Palermo, the Sicilian capital, which he proposed to take. Patton’s immediate superior, British general Harold Alexander, initially authorized the attack but then reversed himself. Patton received the authorization order clearly enough but claimed that the countermand had been garbled in transmission; he plunged ahead and captured the city.

The fall of Palermo precipitated a crisis in the Italian government. Mussolini lost his nerve and then, astonishingly, his job. King Victor Emmanuel, until recently overawed by Mussolini but now fortified by growing restiveness among the dictator’s own circle, demanded his resignation. Mussolini meekly consented and was promptly arrested.

The news caught American leaders, like nearly everyone else, by surprise. “Mr. President, what is your reaction to the sudden change in the Italian government?” a reporter inquired of Roosevelt on the afternoon of July 27.

“Reaction?” Roosevelt answered, playing for time.

“Yes, sir.”

“I never have reactions. I am much too old.” The ensuing laughter bought him another moment.

“Did you have the information that Mussolini would make his exit?” a reporter asked.

“No. No.”

“Could you tell us whether there is likely to be any change in our unconditional surrender policy?”

“Oh, I think the secretary of state covered all that pretty well yesterday.” In fact Hull had dodged the question, refusing either to reiterate the policy or to say that it had changed.

“Mr. President, if there should be an unconditional surrender, do you think…”

“How did you start that sentence? What word?”

“Uh, oh…”

More laughter as Roosevelt reminded the group of his oldest rule: “I don’t think it’s useful for me to go into the details of hypothetical questions.”

It was especially not useful given that he himself didn’t know what the policy was. Unconditional surrender had been problematic from the start, seeming to handcuff American and British leaders. Yet this was precisely the point, for in tying Roosevelt and Churchill to the mast of the harshest possible anti-Axis policy, it reassured Stalin, who had ample reason—starting with the long history of Anglo-American anti-Bolshevism and continuing through the repeated postponement of the second front—to doubt the steadfastness of his capitalist allies. But the problems with the policy persisted. Did Washington and London really intend to make no distinction among Italians, in the present case, or among Germans, when their time came? Did the deposing of Mussolini make no difference whatsoever?

The Office of War Information, America’s propaganda arm, didn’t see that anything had changed. Robert Sherwood’s agency, reading—metaphorically and almost literally—from the old script, regarded the events in Rome as producing a distinction without a difference. The OWI lambasted Victor Emmanuel as “the moronic little king” and “the Fascist king” in its Voice of America broadcasts. The new head of the Italian government, Marshal Pietro Badoglio, was accounted “a high ranking Fascist.”

Reporters immediately inquired whether Roosevelt agreed. Were the OWI broadcasts authorized by the president and the State Department?

“Neither of us,” Roosevelt replied. “Nor by Bob Sherwood. And I think Bob Sherwood is raising hell about it now. It ought never to have been done.” The reporters scribbled down the president’s answer. “Only don’t quote me as saying ‘raising hell,’” he added.

“The first crack in the Axis has come,” Roosevelt told the nation the next day. “The criminal, corrupt, Fascist regime in Italy is going to pieces. The pirate philosophy of the Fascists and the Nazis cannot stand adversity.” Roosevelt noted, gloating, that Hitler had not been willing or able to save Mussolini. “In fact, Hitler’s troops in Sicily stole the Italians’ motor equipment, leaving Italian soldiers so stranded that they had no choice but to surrender.” Regarding terms of surrender, the president explained:

Our terms to Italy are still the same as our terms to Germany and Japan—“unconditional surrender.” We will have no truck with Fascism in any way, in any shape or manner. We will permit no vestige of Fascism to remain.

Yet this very statement, and those that followed it, hinted that things were neither as simple nor as clear-cut as that two-word slogan suggested. Unconditional surrender applied to the Fascists; did it apply to Italy as a whole? Maybe, maybe not. “Eventually Italy will reconstitute herself,” Roosevelt said. “It will be the people of Italy who will do that, choosing their own government in accordance with the basic democratic principles of liberty and equality.” The president declined to indicate how long “eventually” would be or to describe the state of government Italy would experience until then. He did declare that the Allies would treat the people of Italy—and the peoples of the other Axis powers, in their turn—fairly and humanely. “It is our determination to restore these conquered peoples to the dignity of human beings, masters of their own fate, entitled to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.” Roosevelt refused to go beyond this generic reaffirmation of the Atlantic Charter. The present, he said, was not the time to discuss the details of a peace settlement. “Let us win the war first.”

I
T WASN’T TOO
soon for Americans to discuss among themselves their own postwar future. The sudden collapse of Mussolini’s regime, which had ruled Italy for two decades, suggested that fascism might be more brittle than it seemed from the outside and that the war might end more rapidly than anyone had imagined. Roosevelt had put off asking what American society would look like after the war, thinking there was plenty of time for that. Now he offered some hints.

The Four Freedoms, of course, should apply to Americans as well as to people in other countries, and while freedom of speech and freedom of religion were secure enough, freedom from want and freedom from fear required work. All Americans must enjoy these freedoms, Roosevelt said. But the task of guaranteeing them might well begin with assurances to the millions of soldiers, sailors, and airmen who would be demobilized at the conclusion of the fighting. They were making the greatest sacrifice; they deserved the greatest attention.

The president proposed what amounted to a GI bill of rights. First on his list was a mustering-out bonus large enough to cover living expenses for a reasonable period between discharge from the military and the assuming of civilian jobs. Second, unemployment insurance for those unable to find jobs. Third, government funding for further education. Fourth, credit with Social Security for the time spent in the military. Fifth, medical care and rehabilitation for those injured in the service. Sixth, pensions for disabled veterans.

Roosevelt realized he was walking a narrow line, even apart from the ambition and cost of his demobilization program. Talking about policies to be implemented after the war risked distracting Americans from the job at hand. “We still have to knock out Hitler and his gang, and Tojo and his gang,” he declared. “We still have to defeat Hitler and Tojo on their own home grounds.” If anything, the recent developments should stimulate Americans to greater efforts than ever. “We must pour into this war the entire strength and intelligence and will power of the United States,” he concluded. “We shall not settle for less than total victory.”

E
ISENHOWER GROANED
at Roosevelt’s public reaffirmation of unconditional surrender. The policy might make sense to the politicians, but it rendered the army’s job more difficult—and more costly in terms of casualties. Eisenhower knew from the Ultra intercepts that Hitler had responded to Mussolini’s fall by ordering German troops to Italy. Nazi forces were currently racing from France and Austria into northern Italy toward Rome. Eisenhower hoped to persuade the Italians to turn against the Germans, giving him half a chance to keep the capital from falling into Hitler’s hands. But they had to be offered something in exchange for switching sides—some assurance, for example, that occupation by the Allies would be less onerous than occupation by the Germans. If Roosevelt was to be believed, such assurance was precisely what he was forbidden to offer. Unconditional surrender—nothing less.